Rubio On Immigration Law—Liar Or Ignorant?

Warning

Marco Rubio was on Rush Limbaugh today. He tried to sound reasonable and claimed he would not be bum rushed by Obama outbidding the RINOs on what will be provided in the upcoming amnesty proposals.

I don`t believe a word he says, but to the end he made a claim that those aliens “lawfully present” had only one welfare program that they are eligible for. Of course he did not note that most illegal aliens qualify in one way or another for all welfare programs.

But he claimed that Obamacare was the only welfare program for which certain aliens qualified for. And he used “lawfully present.”

Well, that just is not true. So-called lawfully present aliens qualify for many welfare programs, including food stamps (Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP)), Section 8, Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF), Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Medicare, Medicaid, and Obamaphones, among other programs. Now there are regulations that govern these and other programs. Some programs have a 5 year wait period for legal permanent residents, one class of “legally present” aliens, others don`t.

But one is not certain what Rubio meant by “legally present.” This means an alien who has been admitted or paroled, and has not violated the conditions of admission or parole. In fact Obamacare is open to any alien who can show they were admitted and the period of admission has not expired. There is obviously no attempt to verify that an alien who is applying for Obamacare has not violated the terms of admission, such as working illegally. This means that those lawfully admitted as tourists on a B-2 non-immigrant visa, for example, are lawfully present. There is, of course, no reason for a tourist to need Obamacare and any tourist who applies is by definition not a tourist, but a resident who is most likely working illegally, but minimally not planning on leaving when the period of admission expires.

It is strange that Rubio brought up the issue of Obamacare relating to amnesty for illegal aliens. While illegal aliens are not eligible for Obamacare, these illegal aliens get free medical care anyway by using public hospitals, subsidized clinics and Medicaid. Rubio claimed that allowing the 11 million illegal aliens into Obamacare will bankrupt the system, but they are already in the system.

More likely it was Rubio`s dishonesty that was his motive to make these statements. One way or another, aliens, legal or illegal, use the full panoply of the Welfare State, whether it is the Women, Infants, Children (WIC) program that is legally open to illegal aliens, to SNAP that is available indirectly to illegal aliens if they have a legal alien or citizen in the household. It appeared that Rubio was trying to deceive or downplay the problem illegal and legal aliens present as welfare recipients. He did this by seeking to deceive Americans about the access that “lawfully present” aliens have to the welfare system. And that also implied to the public that illegal aliens don`t have any access to the welfare system. And that is not true.

Now the ignorance of politicians is legendary, but I just don`t believe that Rubio thinks that the welfare system is restricted to Americans for the most part.